Caítríona Considine might live just 1.5km from the Cliffs of Moher; but there is another treasure closer to her home, and heart.
Caítríona runs the award-winning Moher Cottage café and gift shop in a converted cowshed on the family beef and suckler farm in Co Clare, making it one of the few farmyards in Ireland where you can order a flat white.
She and husband Kevin – who also runs the 151-year-old Considine’s pub – were looking forward to a busy tourist season ahead before COVID-19, though Caítríona has adapted by selling care packages including her homemade fudge at www.mohercottage.com and will open for takeaway as soon as possible.
In the meantime, she has been exploring her own patch of the Wild Atlantic Way within her 5km radius, but while the deserted Cliffs of Moher are “surreal but beautiful”, it’s St Bridget’s Well right across the road that is the real draw.
“The local folklore is that St Bridget travelled Ireland and stopped there. It’s known as a healing well since,” explains Caítríona.
“So there would be great faith in St Bridget here in terms of her healing powers, but also for animals and because we’re a farming community, over the years people would go in there if they had a sick cow and get some water for the cow.
“My father-in-law used to tell us as well that if you saw an eel in the water, your request would be granted. So I always tell the visitors here to look out for the eel. I’ve never seen one yet, but I keep looking!”
Caítríona says that people “in a rush to the cliffs” can overlook the well, though she often directs her customers there. There is an old well house that was built in the 1830s by an MP at the time, Cornelius O’Brien, as thanksgiving after he sent for water from the well after falling ill and recovered. There are always candles flickering and visitors often leave momentos of loved ones who are sick or have passed away.
“I would probably go there quicker than I would go to a church for a bit of peace and a bit of a moment and there is kind of a ritual in lighting a candle and thinking of whoever you might be worried for or who might be in your mind for whatever reason,” says Caítríona, who has been contacted by many people via social media during lockdown to light a candle for them.
“I was getting messages from as far away as a nurse in New Jersey who said, ‘Will you light a candle for me and my colleagues, things aren’t great here’,” she explains.
“Watching all these people in the frontline, you feel kind of helpless, you feel you can’t do anything. So it was nice that it gave maybe a little comfort to people who knew of it.”
And while it is going to be a very challenging summer for Irish tourism, Caítríona is grateful for the place she calls home.
“We really are so lucky to live there,” she says. “We do count our blessings every day.”
Elizabeth MacDonnell and her husband Paul run Hushabye Alpaca Farm (www.hushabyefarmalpacas.com) on the Laois-Offaly border, where they also offer self-catering accommodation and run alpaca husbandry and spinning workshops; though these are on pause due to the pandemic.
Off farm, Elizabeth also works as an optometrist, which means that she spent the weeks up until 18 May at home with their four children.
Under normal circumstances, the family would head for the Slieve Blooms for a walk or further afield to Ardmore, but with lockdown, they found a new place to explore on their doorstep: the bog.
“The kids thought it was the greatest thing ever,” says Elizabeth; though rather than footing turf, activities included picnics and nature hunts.
“It is so beautiful down there and so peaceful,” says Elizabeth. “I think the actual contrast between the bog and the greenery surrounding it and then the amount of butterflies and dragonflies, you could hear so many birds because it was so silent and then the uninterrupted views of the Slieve Blooms.”
And even as restrictions ease slowly, Elizabeth sees the family spending more time this summer safely exploring the bog together.
“Kids are so used to being entertained now,” she says. “It’s so nice to see them entertain themselves and finding joy in simple things.”
As a hairdresser also working part time in fashion retail, Amana Tarrant has seen a complete change of pace since lockdown.
Originally from a dairy background, Amanda lives in Farmers Bridge close to Tralee, Co Kerry, with her husband James, whose work as a show jump builder and course designer has also been impacted by the virus.
However, the couple and their three children have tried to make the best of lockdown in their local area, from appreciating old sites like the nearby Ballyseedy church to finding new places they never knew existed.
“We’re stopping and realising what’s on our doorstep,” says Amanda,
“We found a lovely glen with a river going through it and the five of us went down there exploring one of the days and had no idea where we were going.
“And there’s an old lime kiln that we discovered practically in the field beside us and we never saw that before.”
Amanda adds that she has enjoyed plenty of socially distant chats with neighbours she might never have spoken to before, as well as foraging to make gorse syrup and elderflower cordial. She is also hoping to start keeping bees in the near future.
“If I can catch a swarm,” she laughs.
And while Amanda misses meeting friends and the social side of her work, she believes that the lockdown experience “shows us how little we actually need”.
“You can adjust to anything I think,” she says. “The body and the mind are wonderful things.” CL
From a cowshed to a café, meet Caitriona Considine of Moher Cottage